Blue Jays select Canadian outfielder Dasan Brown with 88th pick

Dasan Brown is one of the top Canadian draft prospects out of high school as the centerfielder is super athletic, with good speed and loud bat speed and overall hitting tools. The Texas A&M signee really impressed in centerfield, taking correct and efficient routes to the baseball even when he had to track down fly balls in the alleys. He reads the ball well right off the bat and has keen spatial awareness and speed to not only get to a lot of difficult batted balls, but potentially stick in centerfield at the next level.

The offensive tools are there to be successful but the overall profile is a bit raw offensively. The bat path is a bit top hand heavy with his hands very close to his body but his twitchy, uber-fast hands are enough to consistently get the barrel of the bat out in front. There’s good present bat speed for Brown and he turned in a solid performance in this look, smoking a hard hit ball through the four hole on the right side of the infield. The best run time recorded on Brown on this day was an average time when he slowed up so there’s likely at least above-average run there when he’s busting it down the line. As with the majority of the Canadian team, Brown will be young on the draft and his combination of centerfield traits and athleticism should entice at least heavy consideration for an early pick. – Source 

For the past five Drafts, there has been a high school hitter from Ontario taken in the top two rounds, two being the first-round Naylor brothers. Brown, a super-athletic and a bit raw outfielder from North of the Border, may not go quite that early in June, but he is the best Canadian prospect in this class by far. Most evaluations on Brown are projections for far off in the future, with interested teams knowing they will have to be patient. He does have solid contact skills from the right side of the plate and he should grow into some raw power. He needs to add strength and has trouble impacting the ball at times as a result, though some scouts point out that Brown was most heavily scouted while facing pro competition this spring. The Texas A&M commit has close to top-of-the-scale speed, which makes him a threat on the basepaths and helps him cover a ton of ground in center field, where he should be a plus defender down the road. Teams that love players with premium athleticism and a ton of ceiling are likely going to look at Brown in the first three or four rounds. It might take some time, but the payoff could be huge. – Source